Was Kim playing the Cohen card in Hanoi? Shame on the Democrats

There has been a lot of hand-wringing and complaints in the media the past week about how Trump suffered a failure in his summit with Chairman Kim in Hanoi.

Trump, of course, said he had to walk away from the negotiations because North Korea was trying to get the USA to fully lift sanctions in exchange for the dismantling of one nuclear plant.

Walking away under those circumstances should be considered a victory for Trump, as the alternative was the equivalent of surrender.

But what is even more interesting is the complete silence of our pseudo-omniscient media on the timing of Kim’s attempt to squeeze outrageous concessions out of Trump. Remember, this summit happened simultaneously with the Democratic Star Chamber trying to cut Trump off at the knees by hearing the corrupt testimony of convicted liar Michael Cohen.

Cohen’s relevant testimony actually benefited the president in many ways, but you would not know that if you listened to the pack of wolves (oops! reporters and pundits!) salivating over the liar “opining” on the president’s bad character (irony alert!).

But as I pointed out previously, it was unpatriotic and indeed subversive for House Democrats to schedule the Cohen hearing while the president was overseas trying to negotiate the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. I wasn’t the only person to say so, but I seem to be the only person asking whether the Democrats succeeded in subverting the Hanoi negotiations and thus putting the world in greater danger.

Remember, at a brief press conference at the beginning of the summit, Kim said he was willing to denuclearize his country. “If I’m not willing to do that, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he said in response to a reporter’s question.

In other words, Kim had the mindset that it was realistic to trade his nukes for economic prosperity — which is essentially the deal that Trump was offering. Yet hours later, talks collapsed when Kim suddenly retrenched and tried to get our president to capitulate and let North Korea remain a nuclear power.

So what had changed? Just the Democrats unsheathing their knives and trying to fillet Trump with the Cohen hearing. Obviously Kim is not oblivious to the fact that the president faces considerable opposition at home. How hard is it to surmise that Chairman Kim thought that a “weakened” President Trump would seize at any deal in order to have a “win” to promote back home? Thus, although he said he was willing to denuclearize, he thought it was worth a shot to prey on the political turmoil in the United States to get a sweetheart deal. In other words, he played the Cohen card he had been dealt under the table by the House Democrats.

This of course is exactly why in previous generations it was said that “politics ends at the water’s edge,” but the Democrats discarded that wisdom and offered North Korea an opening it should never have had.

Fortunately, President Trump did exactly what he promised he would do — he walked away from a bad deal, and let Kim and the world know that he will protect American interests over anything — even corrupt subversive politics. The Democrats should be ashamed.

Frank Miele writes from Kalispell, Montana, at www.HeartlandDiaryUSA.com and is a columnist at Real Clear Politics. To see more of my columns about the Dishonest Media, the Deep Swamp, the failed presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and Trump’s war to restore American greatness, read my “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy. Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” They are available at Amazon in paperback or Kindle editions. Also please considering leaving a review in support of my conservative commentary on one or all of my book pages at Amazon! Thanks!